


Gift from the Heart

by Neverever



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon)
Genre: Art, Artist Steve Rogers, Charity Auctions, Christmas Presents, Established Relationship, Gift Giving, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-09-23 06:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17075240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever
Summary: Steve and Tony have been dating for awhile now but Steve struggles to get Tony just the right gift for Christmas.





	Gift from the Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SmileAndASong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmileAndASong/gifts).



> SmileandASong asked for a fic about Steve struggling to get the right present for Tony and deciding to draw something for him.
> 
> I hope that this story is what you were hoping for!

“Hey, for Christmas this year, are we going to do a secret santa thing or just a everyone-gets-presents thing?” Clint asked.

Steve was passing through the living room on his way to a television interview. He’d promised Tony he’d help with the upcoming Maria Stark Foundation charity auction and, apparently, PR was a large part of his expected help. 

“Nah,” Natasha replied. She was relaxing on one of the sofas, reading something on her phone. Nearby, Clint was leaning over a pile of disassembled arrows on the coffee table. “It’s not that big a deal to get presents for everyone. It’s a party, it’s fun to open presents.”

“We have from about Thanksgiving to Christmas to get presents for 6 other team members. Scott probably wants in, even if he’s in California.”

“A little planning wouldn’t kill you,” a supremely unsympathetic Nat replied. “There are sales. Or order online. Steve could always use more blue t-shirts.”

“You’re just as bad as Steve at times.”

“Yes, one of the many side benefits of growing up in assassin-boarding school was the training for planning and securing Christmas presents,” Natasha replied, never looking up from her phone. 

Clint scrowled. “You bought us all gift certificates last year,” he stated.

“Matches the requirements of having something to open at the party. Perfect fit and no returns. And I don’t have to stand in lines in crowded stores, like someone I could mention.”

“Right. Oh, yeah, hey, Steve.” Finally noticing that Steve was listening, Clint waved an unfinished arrow at him. “Big Christmas this year. For you and Tony. No more Iron Man golf balls for presents.”

That got Natasha to look at both of them. “Steve, don’t listen to him. Clint is useless at gift-giving. Remember the Pez dispensers. I’m sure you already have something nice for Tony this year.”

Honestly, Steve hadn’t given Tony’s present much thought. November had kind of snuck up on him and he hadn’t begun to plan for Christmas. And Tony was far better at giving gifts than receiving. What you could you get for a billionaire anyway?

“I’ll be back for dinner,” Steve said, now troubled by what he was going to get Tony. It couldn’t be that hard to find a good present for his boyfriend, right?

~~~~~

“So, Captain America, an artist?” the interviewer asked, in that same way that any number of people asked Steve that same question. Like it was impossible that Captain America could be anything other than Captain America, and the “artist thing” was just a hobby Steve had picked up that afternoon.

Only the Avengers could have detected the slight slump of Steve’s shoulders as he trotted out the usual, tired story. As he talked about his year at Pratt, Steve reminded himself that this interview was for Tony’s favorite charity. The Stark PR team had set the whole thing up. He plastered the smile back on and soldiered through the rest.

“There, not too bad,” the Stark PR said to him as she removed the button mike from his collar. “That interview was pretty good, even if you looked like you were going to knock Dan out at the end there.”

Steve frowned. He wouldn’t have done that except — “Was it that obvious?” he asked nervously. He was glad he’d managed to keep his relationship with Tony out of the interview. They weren’t public yet.

The chipper woman shrugged. “They’ll edit it out.” Her phone beeped. “Oh, a car is on its way to pick you up.”

Tony probably wanted to go out for dinner somewhere. Or maybe spend time together without the team. Steve still felt giddy whenever he was around Tony, floating on air and happy to be alive, just holding hands with his boyfriend.

Steve never thought he’d get lucky again after losing Peggy and waking up eighty years later in a different world. But Tony found him, and he couldn’t be happier.

Someone that spectacular deserved a spectacular Christmas present. 

The car pulled up to the curb and Clint shouted, “Get in. We’re going shopping.”

Steve squeezed into the back with Sam. “What’s going on?”

“Clint’s freaking out about Christmas. I want to get something for my mom.”

“We could have taken the subway or a bus, Clint,” Steve said, from the bottom of his heart as a longtime New York resident. “We could walk too.”

“We’re not coming back until I get a gift for everyone on my list. I need trunk space.”

They were dropped off in front of the Shops at Columbus Circle. Steve sighed at the crowds and wanted to be anywhere but there. “Why didn’t you get Bruce or Thor?”

“Seriously, you have to ask why we didn’t bring Bruce with these crowds?” Sam replied. He headed towards Williams-Sonoma.

“Right. I shouldn’t have even thought about that. But Thor?”

“He and Natasha are having a baking contest -- she’s baking, he’s eating.”

Steve picked up a skillet, paled at the cost, and put it back on the display. “I didn’t know Nat liked to bake.”

Sam shrugged while he inspected a rack of kitchen tools. “There was a bet involved -- she doesn’t like losing. I think Thor was supposed to bake too. He has his gifts --”

“From Asgard.” Steve hoped Thor wasn’t giving out flasks of ale again. They had to peel Hulk off the ceiling last year. 

“He’s as bad as Natasha,” Clint said from behind them. “How’s it going?”

Sam picked through a bin of vegetable and fruit peelers and snagged a mango cutter/peeler. He held it up like he was seriously considering it. 

“Bird-boy, really? Getting your mom a mango slicer?”

“She could use one. Clint, I have to get her something soon. She’s going to Atlanta for the holidays -- visiting my aunt and her family.”

The mango slicer seemed to be a good idea. Maybe he could get something for Tony’s guacamole. The crowds, the music and the overloaded displays of potential Christmas gifts were making him feel desperate. At this rate, he was going to walk out of here with a margarita mixer -- even though Tony didn’t drink margaritas -- just to get something to flee the mall.

“Come on -- let’s try somewhere else,” Clint grumbled.

“I have no idea why you brought me along,” Steve said to Sam, who was looking hopelessly at a Sephora. 

“Clint thought we could use the muscle and the intimidation to cut through the crowds. Also, you’re too polite to say no.”

It turned out that Clint was very serious about not going back until they had gifts. Sam had found a nice sweater for his mom and was going to add a gift certificate. Clint had settled on cat socks for Nat (an inside joke), a best-selling astronomy book for Bruce, a massage tool for Thor, and something in a plastic bag for Steve. 

Sam and Steve were standing outside a kiosk as Clint browsed the calendars looking for the right poop-themed one for Scott. 

“Didn’t find anything for Tony?” Sam asked.

“Nothing seemed right. There are some stores near the Tower -- I could try there.” Despite the calm, Steve was near panicking that he hadn’t found anything for Tony after an hour of shopping. Nor a single lead on what to get.

“My mom always says that a gift from the heart means more than anything you can buy. She usually said that about my craft projects from school.”

“Hmmm.”

“They weren’t very good -- my craft projects. I have no idea why she’d keep them, other than she’s my mom.”

“That was a waste of time,” Clint declared as he left the kiosk empty-handed. “Next.”

“We can ditch him at the food court,” Sam whispered to Steve. “Make our escape.”

“We can’t do that to Clint.”

Sam muttered, “He was right -- you’re too nice to say no.”

~~~~~

The next day, Steve had a few hours to himself. He really didn’t need the work-out, but he wasn’t crazy about organizing his art supplies either. The odds were pretty good that someone on the team was going to get him an art-supply related gift. 

Unless Tony bought him an art store. 

No, Tony wouldn’t do that. The team had been able to shut down Tony’s big, expensive, Christmas impulse buys. Tony was a generous person, but the generosity could be overwhelming when he felt guilty for almost forgetting to get gifts. 

To be honest, Steve felt pretty guilty himself. He’d spent a couple hours online looking for something for Tony. Nothing felt like the right gift for someone who brightened Steve’s day every day. Who was brilliant and courageous and just an all-around great guy.

Besides, Tony could buy himself anything he needed or wanted. Which didn’t leave Steve many options.

He leaned his canvasses against the wall. He needed to work on his watercolor techniques. The last piece he’d attempted was Tony in the workshop. He’d gone back to oils in the past month out of a vague sense of frustration about not getting what he wanted from watercolor. Oils suited his paintings of Tony, being dramatic and bold.

Wait. That was an idea. 

He could do a drawing or two of Tony. He could get the drawings framed and Tony would have a picture for the workshop or the office. It would be unique and special and from the heart. Which made for the best presents, like Sam said.

“Hey,” Tony said from the doorway. “Got time for lunch?”

“Yeah.” He dropped his project like a hot potato. 

“Oh, by the way, the Maria Stark people want to do a video of us looking at the charity gifts first thing tomorrow morning. So we can’t get up to any funny business tonight.”

“There go my plans.”

“I said ‘tonight,’ not ‘this afternoon’.”

 

Steve laughed. “Lunch first, then funny business.”

“Sounds downright dirty when you say that, Steve,” Tony added with a grin. “I like it when you talk dirty.”

~~~~~

Steve had decided on the pose and the setting for the painting. Painting in oils would capture the mood and the feeling he wanted. He liked having some texture and deep color to the piece, it suited Tony well. He would have to do a small piece, considering that he had only a short time. A random supervillain attack, which happened nearly every week, would set him back. So he had to keep to a tight schedule, which was not at all helpful with art.

He asked Friday to block off some time so he wouldn’t be scheduled for meetings with SHIELD or for training. He also enlisted Nat to cut down any further kidnapping events by Clint. He had two weeks for his project, and he already had a framer lined up who reserved a last-minute slot for Steve.

He had the time, the supplies, a nice playlist going, and the right light. And barely any reference pictures of Tony.

Which was strange, because Steve swore he had a large collection of reference pictures he painstakingly amassed for all the team members, ranging from them in uniform and in action, to them in civvies and relaxing around the Tower, filed by date and name and location. Friday had helpfully stored them all for Steve. But all he had for Tony was a stock photo of him in the Iron Man armor and a blurry photo of him in a suit. He had no idea where that had even come from.

“Friday?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“What reference shots do you have for Tony?”

“Over 10,000 photos from the last year alone. How would you like me to sort them?”

“Tony, in the workshop, late at night, tank top.”

“I have photos of the boss in the workshop, but not late at night or in a tank top.”

Right. How would Friday know if it was late at night unless she checked the time stamp. Steve could see the scene in his mind -- Tony, grease smeared, in a black tank top, welding a repair on the helmet. Steve remembered the light being soft and spotlighting the concentration on Tony’s face. Yeah, okay. Friday wasn’t going to find that photo.

Guess he’d have to carry around a notebook and sketch Tony when he could, to capture the right mood and expression. 

“Steve? Hate to bother you when you have super-secret time off, but we have a problem,” Tony said over the Tower comms.

“Who’s causing problems now?”

“The PR people. We have to redo that video for the auction. Get cleaned up and come on down -- I’ll get us over to the Foundation.”

“Okay,” Steve said. At least he could get in some sketches of Tony.

“I promise you’ll get a nice reward for your troubles.”

Steve smiled. “Like what we did in the quinjet last week?”

“Better. Hotter. You won’t regret it.”

~~~~~

Steve regretted it all the next day when he had to fight to get in at least an hour’s worth of work on his gift project. Even if Tony did the thing in that place …. Steve got a tingle and shiver thinking about it. But they slept in late, then there was breakfast and a workout in the gym.

He figured he had an hour or two if he ate lunch in his suite. Then he was supposed to meet up with Tony for more auction-related business. And he couldn’t afford to give into Tony if Tony suggested dinner out -- he’d lose too much time.

He did his warm-up doodles and sketches, and started filling the canvas with his composition of Tony, helmet, workshop and lamp. The memory of how he felt watching Tony flowed through his pencils. He was happy with the placement and turned to selecting the colors.

Except now Steve wasn’t happy with the colors he had selected for Tony’s hair. And photos weren’t going to help now, because the colors in photographs weren’t always true to life, for various reasons. He sat back in his chair and looked at the ceiling, groaning. 

He had to spend time with Tony, in different light, to get the right shades and highlights. Which was not going to be helpful if he had to get the painting done.

“Steve, ready to go to the Foundation?” Tony asked over the comm.

“Give me a few minutes.” Tony couldn’t see him in his painting clothes or else he would suspect something. 

~~~~~

“Whatcha doing, Steve?” Tony asked. He was in the datacrux doing Avengers work.

Steve froze as he reached for his palette. “Working,” he replied. He was in his suite with a “Do not disturb” sign.

“You said that the last three times I called. What are you working on?”

He was a bad off-the-cuff liar and, besides, Tony would make it a mission to wheedle the truth out of him. And Steve knew he’d cave. “I’m busy, Tony.”

“How busy? Too busy to check something out?”

Steve was stalled on what to do about the tank top. If he spent the time with Tony, he could get more sketches. He caved. “I’ll be right down.” 

The pressing thing that Tony wanted to show him was a bunch of YouTube videos of fighting robots. Tony was fascinated. And ordinarily Steve would be too, but he was distracted by the feeling he was running out of time to finish Tony’s present.

Annoyed, Tony toed his foot. “Hey, shield guy, are you are interested or what? You’ve been doodling in that notebook since you got here.”

Steve sighed, closed his moleskine, and asked Tony to replay the video. Tony threw his arm over Steve’s shoulder. “Beats doing work, right?”

~~~~~

Good thing that Steve didn’t need much sleep. He was going to have to pull an all-nighter if he was going to make any progress.

Even with the super-soldier serum, he felt weary at 2 am after painting for three hours. He barely avoided disaster after he nodded off on his stool and his palette full of paint nearly slid off his lap. The feel of the palette slipping out of his fingers shocked him awake. He wouldn’t have had this problem if he had chosen the wiser course of doing a digital piece in the first place.

“Hey, it’s Steve without his notebook,” Clint said to him cheerfully when Steve crept into the kitchen for a quick breakfast.

“I don’t always have my notebook,” Steve muttered. There was no way he could grab a quick breakfast and get back to painting now that Clint was there. 

“Please. Your hand has been glued to a moleskine for the past week. Red Skull asked about it when we fought him a couple of days ago.”

Steve didn’t answer. Not that pointedly ignoring Clint was going to shut him up. “Where’s Sam?”

“Finals. He’ll surface in a couple of days. Just in time for the auction.”

He nodded. 

“Holiday party after that. I’ve got all my gifts now,” Clint crowed.

“Did you end up getting gift certificates?”

Clint sighed. “Yeah, to add to what I already got. But don’t tell Nat I gave up.” He pointed a spoon at Steve. “What I want to know is what you’re getting Tony.”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Maybe for Tony. I’ve seen you staring at him when you think no one is looking. I’d think you were pining for him if I didn’t know you two were dating. All that adds up to you doing some sort of heartfelt gift of art for your boyfriend.” Clint tipped his head to the side, proud of himself for guessing Steve’s gift.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Steve warned him.

“You can trust me. I’d like to see Tony at a loss for words for once.”

~~~~~

Steve had a hard deadline for getting the piece done. He had one day to get the canvas painted so it had time to dry before he gave it to the framers. He’d emailed a photo of the piece and the dimensions to the owner of the shop, hoping that all the framer had to do was slip the finished canvas into the pre-made frame. It could all still go pear shaped.

“So the PR people want to know if I’m bringing anyone special to the auction,” Tony said at lunch.

Steve was trying to surreptitiously sketch Tony’s hands, which were the last bits of the painting he had to finish. For some reason the shading was eluding him. 

“Could you stop that for one second?” Tony asked, clearly annoyed. “And quit with the whole staring thing.”

“What?”

“You’ve been staring at me all the time lately. If I didn’t think you had some special reason, it’d be creepy.”

“I have to practice,” Steve offered.

“Back to the auction. Nothing personal, but I’d prefer our first outing as a couple not be at a charity auction -- it would overshadow the auction. Okay with that?”

Steve was focused on the more immediate problem of why Tony’s hands were so difficult to draw. How did he turn his wrist like that? It suddenly felt like he was never going to get that painting done.

“Steve.”

“Oh, right. That makes sense.”

“Thank you for agreeing to donate your blood to MODOK’s latest genetic experiments.”

Steve snorted. “You asked if I would be okay with us not going public at the auction. I am fine with that.”

“That super-soldier serum keeps saving your ass, doesn’t it, Rogers?”

“I understand that you like my ass. If I remember correctly, you were saying last night --”

“Stop with the sex talk. Innocent child entering the kitchen,” Natasha announced as she and Sam walked into the room. “Sam, you should go to Atlanta with your mom.”

“But what about the team --”

Natasha set a couple of bags on the counter and a roll of wrapping paper. “We can handle it. And if the world is ending, we know where to find you.”

Tony whispered to Steve, “Let’s talk more about your ass somewhere more private.”

Steve lost another couple of hours to Tony’s conversation. After a nap and a shower, he painted Tony’s hands the fastest he’d ever painted before. He made his deadline, although he was crushed that the painting wasn’t the most perfect version of what he’d had in his mind when he first thought of the project. 

He dropped the painting off at the framers. “I can have this done tomorrow afternoon,” the owner said. 

“Really?” Steve asked. Getting the painting framed and back at the Tower a couple of days before Christmas would be great.

“Sure. I’ll text you when I’m done.”

~~~~~

“If they ask, I didn’t ask you to help out at the auction just because you look great in a tux,” Tony whispered in Steve’s ear as they left hair and makeup.

Steve grinned at Tony. “Don’t get handsy or the producers will get annoyed at you messing me up.”

“Hold that thought for after the auction. I’ll get the limo to pick us up and we can take the real long way home.”

“Captain Rogers? I have something for you,” a PA called to him.

“I’ll catch up,” Steve said to Tony. 

The PA held up a package for him. “This was dropped off for you.” 

“Oh.” He could tell from the packaging that it was the framed portrait of Tony. For some reason, the framer had sent the painting to the hotel instead of the Tower. 

“Where would you like me to put this?” she asked helpfully. 

“Back in that place where they told us to put our stuff -- where we changed clothes.”

“Sure!” 

Steve texted Friday to arrange for a courier to take the painting back to his suite. He couldn’t take it home with him, considering Tony’s plans.

A producer beckoned to him. “Captain Rogers, we need you over here.” She pointed to Tony standing to the side.

Tony was uncharacteristically worried about the auction. He stood restlessly next to Steve, waiting for their turn as celebrity auctioneers. “I just want to raise a lot of money for the Foundation, you know.”

“It seems to be going very well.”

“You never know.”

“Captain -- you’re up. The mike is at the podium for you.”

Steve had his little cards with the description of the piece he was introducing plus a plug for the Foundation’s educational initiatives. He’d memorized them already, but he worried about flubbing a line or two. 

The lights focused on the podium nearly blinded Steve as he stepped forward. A stagehand wheeled in the next item to be auctioned, a nice landscape painting of the Boathouse in Central Park. Steve liked it, but wasn’t as excited about it as the audience was from the noise they made when it was unveiled.

“Loeb Boathouse, 4 PM, by Alicia Masters is a masterwork --”

A person in the audience whispered loudly. “That’s not the Boathouse.”

Steve turned to look at the painting behind him. Only to be shocked to see it was his painting of Tony gleaming on the display under the lights. It was strange to his painting there, like something made by someone else. If he was asked, he’d say that the painting was a beautiful and intimate portrait in oils of Tony Stark, painted by an artist with some skill. But it was his, so of course he saw all the mistakes and the ways he could have done better.

A stagehand rushed out to wheel it away. The audience, already noisy, became more restless as it was clear that the painting was being removed.

“I’ll bid a thousand on that,” someone shouted from the back of the room.

“A thousand five hundred,” a man to the right of the stage countered.

Steve saw a producer rapidly flipping through a sheaf of paper. “I have no idea what this is or who made it or where it came from. It’s not one of the donations,” she said to the other producer.

He walked towards her and said, “It’s mine -- I painted it.” Except the mike on the podium actually caught what he said. He closed his eyes as he heard “It’s mine -- I painted it” echo in the room.

The audience went wild -- well, as wild as a charity auction audience in a New York City hotel ballroom was likely to go. 

“You painted that?” the producer asked. She looked skeptically at him. The audience could hear everything.

“I was an artist before the war,” Steve replied indignantly. “I painted that as a gift for Tony.” 

Tony had come up to the stage. “Put it up for auction,” he said.

“But --” Steve started to protest.

At that point, he was gently ushered off the stage so that the main auctioneer could take over. He stood fuming on the side of the stage as the auctioneer cheerfully greeted the audience. “I’m opening bids on this lovely painting of Tony Stark, by Steve Rogers. Opening bid is a thousand.”

The bids went higher as Steve’s stomach dropped. He’d made that for Tony but he wasn’t going to get into an argument with Tony in front of a huge group of people. Crushed, he listened to the bid get higher and higher.

“That was brilliant,” one of the Foundation development people said to him. “Offering a true, rare one-of-a-kind item. Who knew that Captain America was that talented a painter?”

Steve wanted to scream. He knew, Tony knew. Then he heard Tony make a bid of a hundred thousand dollars. For his painting. That Steve was going to give him as a gift, the best gift he could think for their first Christmas together.

“No other bids? Congratulations, Mr. Stark, on the winning bid.”

Tony walked out onto the stage. “Thank you, Jake. Just a few words first. Thank you all for your tremendous support for the Maria Stark Foundation.” The audience clapped. “And thank you to Steve Rogers, my wonderful boyfriend, who painted this. I had no idea he was working on it -- like the artist that he is, he’s constantly painting and drawing around the Tower when he isn’t taking down supervillains. There’s a lot more to come -- be sure to bid high and often!”

The rest of the auction passed by in a daze as people asked him about his art or how it was dating Tony or both. Tony helped, of course, as he smiled, laughed and charmed his way around the room with Steve tagging behind. 

At the end of the night, Tony carefully loaded the painting into the limo. “It’s beautiful, Steve. Thank you.”

“You bought it back --”

“No, I raised a lot of money for good causes with it. Now let me thank you properly for a fantastic evening on the ride home.”

~~~~~

A few days later on Christmas Eve, Steve sat on the couch in the Avengers’ living room with Tony leaning on his shoulder. They had all opened their gifts already. Hulk and Clint were battling it out with a videogame, while Thor shouted encouragement at them. Natasha was talking to Sam, who had video-called into the party. 

For some reason, everyone gave Tony random exotic weapons they’d found over the year. Clint’s gifts had gone over well, though he was annoyed by the number of Nerf-arrows he’d been given. Thor had given everyone Asgardian goblets, except for Steve, who got a flask of the special ale.

Steve looked down with pride at the shiny Rolex that Tony had given him -- “It’s retro,” Tony explained when he put on Steve’s wrist, “like you.” It was perfect and Tony had engraved the date of their first official date on the back.

“You saw where I hung the painting?” Tony said.

“Yeah, it’s a perfect spot.” Tony had hung the painting in the living room area of his suite. Steve took a swig of ale from the flask.

“Hey, don’t drink too much, you’ll fall asleep on me. I love that painting, Steve. I’ll miss it when I lend to the New York Historical Society for that exhibit.”

“Exhibit?”

“Yeah, they called after the auction -- they’re putting together a small exhibit of your works.”

Steve frowned. “Am I getting the celebrity discount -- my stuff looks better than it is because I’m an Avenger, not because of what I can do as an artist?”

Tony sat up and turned to Steve. “No. The Historical Society wants to do an exhibit because you are a good artist and an historical New York figure. Trust me.”

Steve nodded. He did want to be taken seriously as an artist. Little steps, he guessed.

“Hey, you didn’t open this.” Tony pushed an envelope at him.

“Watercolor classes? You shouldn’t have, Tony.”

“Actually, I’m selfish -- I want you to do more pictures of me.”

Steve laughed and hugged Tony. “Then you’ll have to let me draw you.”

“That can be arranged,” Tony laughed.


End file.
